So i just realized that the blog here has been relatively dormant the past 2 months, ok lets just be honest... its been completely inactive... but I have to say, happily we have not. While my online update of the haps has not kept up, we have been forging onward, driving many miles, playing many shows, sweating on many stages and doing our laundry as often as possible to keep our clothes and our van from smelling like a high school locker room. Needless to say... I will update more often I promise. Here though is a recap of shows and general happs and highlights of the summer... and and by the way its official "Cinematica" will be in stores OCTOBER 14th!
june 25 - Lang solo acoustic show at Antone's in Austin TX... song swap with some good friends. These nights generally become a whiskey blur and sing a long around 1am. always good times with fellow songwriters.
june 27- lang and bradley duo acoustic show at City Tavern in Dallas TX... did this show with our old friend Taylor Davis... I miss Taylor. He lives in Dallas now... but (and i'm totally not joking about this) he used to live under the stairs at the Sounds Under Radio house here in Austin TX. Short version of the story... Taylor (a singer/songwriter and road traveling troubadour) needed a place to call 'home base' while he was on tour... that place became a nook below the staircase in our living room where he had a lamp, a twin sized matress, a small box fan and a lightup, human sized santa clause (one that you would generally find in someones front lawn during the holiday season... really don't ask). We only charged him 100.00 in rent a month and it worked well for everyone.
June 28- Lang and Bradley duo acoustic show in Bastrop TX. The venue 'Big Mouth' has an amazing kitchen... best salmon dish i've ever had. The rice is divine as well. Great room... old building build in the 30's, renivated, hard wood floors, tall ceilings, you almost done even need a PA in that room the acoustics are so wild.
June 30 -Live web inverview with Open Labs... we own one of their "Miko" keyboards and its about the coolest piece of gear a music nerd could over want to own... we talked about how we use the box, the company, etc... we love those folks. The interview is on youtube, easily searchable.
July 5- Exit Music Festival Waterloo Park, Austin TX... i'm sure if you live in Austin you read about this one in the papers.
July 11- San Angelo Tx... Steel Penny Pub. What a little oasis in the middle of nowhere Texas... Steel Penny... great club, great stage, amazing people there. Stayed at the Howard Johnson... I think the AC in our hotel room was broken. No one slept. Got up as early as we could to get on the road to San Antonio... long drive.
July 12 San Antonio TX... acoustic show at the Cigar Club. We so rarely get to do these kinds of shows... super intimate, super interactive. Played some old songs, some new songs and some bizzare things no one has ever heard before.
July 13 - Scout Bar, Houston TX... always an amazing show. Zakk United over at the Buzz in Houston puts this show on every week... near sold out show, thanks to everyone who made it out late on a Sunday. We had to get back to ATX for an early morning radio engagement... drove through the night, home at 6am. Tired, but worth it.
July 17- back out in Bastrop for more great acoustics and salmon.
July 18- early morning interview on KLBJ fm... played 'Wasteland' acoustic... chatted. Later in the afternoon went over to ME Tv for a spot on 'Tex Mix,' chatted wit Josh Shephard, played some videos... good times. Quick power nap, soundcheck at Stubbs, dinner...
July 18th- ahhhhh our hometown headlining show at Stubbs. We love everyone in Austin... thanks so much for AGAIN making another hometown show so great for us. For the first time ever we played ALL the songs from the forthcoming "Cinematica" record in the set... plus a whole slew of others... personal highlight was finally doing our song 'Perfect Machine' live... its a 10 minute opus, but its one of my personal favs from the record... that was the first time we had ever played it live. Ended the set with it... ahhhh.
July 19th- Bums in Temple TX with our good friends and musical cohorts Mothers Anthem. I absolutely love playing shows with these guys... its always going to be a good show. Thanks to everyone in Temple for making our first outing in your city such a success... we will be back soon!
July 24 - Lang solo show at Flipnotics with Johnny Goudie... this room is amazing. Its a tiny little space, sells out with 50 people, but its so intimate that its worth the discomfort. I had to do a quick set and bolt out... but thanks again to all that made it out. Such a fun time... got to play some new things I'm working on and see how people react... good testing ground for new material in front of friends and fans. Had to jet quick and meet up with the rest of the band and the van... headed to Dallas that night to cut our drive to Tulsa the next day in half. Rolled in the my parents house at 3:30am to find my mother still awake and ready to great us... we always try to stop by and stay with them when we roll through Dallas. No hotel can beat a mothers hospitality!
July 25- Long drive to Tulsa... spent an hour just trying to figure out how to get our van near enough to our venue to load in. Finally worked it out... we were one of the festival headliners which was both a blessing and a curse. We had a fantastic crowd... mid sized rock club, but the other headliners on our night were Austin's Ghostland Observatory and Paramore... both of whom I had interest in seeing at least some part of... alas we were sweating it out on stage. Bradley knocked over his rolad Juno 60 ( a 30 year old analog synth keyboard) and time almost stoppped as we saw it go crashing to the floor. All was ok though... those things are built like tanks.
July 26- Bradyfest in Ft Worth TX... been awhile since we've been back to Ft. Worth... near sold out crowd, could not have asked for a better time.
July 29- taped a live show at ME tv... might become a DVD or something at some point... saw some rough cuts... its looks amazing.
July 31- .db Initiative show at the Lucky Lounge... who are these guys? They rule.
Aug 1- Laredo TX... Average Joes. Got to mile marker 2 in I 35 (could throw a stone in to mexico), go stopped by the border patrol on the return drive to Austin (had to drive back after the show... early load in the next day at Merkaba Lounge in Pflugerville, just a few miles N of ATX). We love Average Joes... Laredo is actually a really cool place... people love their rock n roll music there!
Aug 2- Merkaba Lounge... this place has the coolest sound system and lighting rig in the area... we love playing here. Our good friend Ian ran lights for us... Ian has had a copy of Cinematica for a while and has memorized all of the cues... he rocked an amazing light show. Bradley got fogged out a few times by the fog machine which was on his side of the stage... it kinda looked like something out of 'Spinal Tap' from where I was standing... I saw it happen once, and laughingly almost missed a verse of Wasteland.
Aug 6- Antones in Austin TX... opening for Blind Melon. Seriously... people generally only know this band for their song 'no rain' and the sad passing of their lead singer... but really... they are one of the most underrated bands of the 90s. new front man... did a great job, crowd was stellar. thanks austin for another great evening.
Aug 8- Fitzgeralds in Houston TX... played with a band called Hypernova... all the members just 9 months ago moved to the states from Iran.... they reminded me (in a pleasing way) of Joy Division... although I had just watched the bio pic 'Control' about joy Division the night before... so that was fresh on my mind.
Aug 9- Lake Charles LA... Rikenjaks. First time in Lake Charles... there is a massive bridge leading in to the city... its insane. Lovely place though. After our show we were all at the merch booth and we saw what could only be described as a swarm of police officers roll in to the bar... we didnt know what the hell was going on. we counted 10 of them... they asked for the bartenders licenses etc, and then as quickly s they came, they left. very bizzare.
Aug 10 - looooong drive to Dallas.. but it was well worth it, opening slot for Need to Breath at the House of Blues in Dallas (one of our absolute favorite rooms around). Near sold out show... great energy, great everything. My parents came out to that show... I got an email from my dad the next day that said, "That show kicked ass!" Thats not language he generally uses so it had to have been good... we thought it was too.
Aug 15- Cavern Club in Dallas... did a headlining show on the tiniest stage on the planet. 10x10... we squeezed all of our gear and persons onstage and made it happen. Actually one of the better shows we've played in a while... just good punk rock synergy. Opening the show were Jet Black Stare whom our old tour manager Ryan now tour manages... great to catch up with him, AND Congress of a Crow from Tulsa... I had caught 1 of their songs at D fest weeks before... super nice folks. Got their trailer stolen the next night though... uggg. We stayed a few blocks away with my old friend John... he has the coolest house in Dallas... or at least thats what I think. We watched DVR'd versions of "Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia" till 5am... that has to be one of the funniest shows on television.
Aug 16- made the long haul from Dallas back up to San Angelo to the Steel Penny.... this place is getting better every time we go. Love it. the .dB Initiative was supposed to open the show, but last minute could not make it... but to our good fortune (and slightly to theirs as well) our good friends in the band Nothing More had their evenings engagment in Odessa cancelled last minute due to flash flooding (crazy huh?). We found out about it early in the afternoon and told them that they should come down to San Angelo and open the Sounds Under Radio rock show at the Steel Penny (only a few hrs drive from where they were and in the direction they were heading). So they did... it was fantastic. I love that band.
Aug 21- Lucys in San Marcos... been a while since we've played San Marcos so w didnt quite know what to expect... but man, you folks brought it out... thanks for coming and supporting, filling the room and making us want to return again as soon as possible. thank you. I do have to say though... Lucys has probably THE WORST load in we have ever encoutered. Its on the second floor... one staircase up, super skinny staircase, no midway landing... miserable to haul roadcases up and down. Woke up the next morning more sore than i have been in a long time.
Aug 22 Northgate Music Festival College Station TX... its like a mini SXSW in College Station. Absolutely wonderful event. Been a few months since we've been back to College Station... and again, you people were amazing. We were getting stopped on the street for pics... it was maddness in the best of ways. We played a great show... had an amazing time. Ohhh... best story of this event though... mere MOMENTS after we get in to town I'm driving the van and trailer and am backing up our beast of a vehicle to load our gear in for the show... up a bit of an incline in to a drive behind the venue... I make a few turns and adjustments and all of a sudden.. POP, the trailer tongue slides straight in to a crack in the concrete of this driveway... total one in a million chance this would happen... one hole in 100 square feet of driveway and i somehow landed our 2 in in diameter trailer jack 3 inches deep in concrete... and no matter what I did I could not get the van to move... so after 10 minutes of trying to rock forward and back (mind you... this is a big ole van with a tandem axle trailer loaded with 3000 lbs of gear), i was getting no where when out of the blue a man in overall comes over and offers to get us out of our predicament for a small fee of $10.00. We had to make a move so we payed the good fella 5 before he did the job and 5 after... 2 minutes and a few cranks of a jack later... we were free. Needless to say, we loaded our gear from the street after that... I wasnt about to try again. Thats what wheels on cases are for anyway.
Ok... home for a few days, doing laundry writing songs, etc etc... more to come!
LAng
